It’s hard to chat people up when you can’t speak ...I can ‘type up’ a woman but it sounds wrong
always worried what people would think. I’m still a lot like that now.”
He admits: “Because I went to a school for disabled children 40 minutes away from where I lived, it affected me socially.
“I didn’t really know any other children where I lived. So I felt pretty isolated. Luckily, I had my Amiga 500 to keep me entertained!” H aving to communicate through sign language didn’t help. Which brings us back to women. “I always had to rely on my parents to translate for me,” he recalls. “You just don’t want your mum there when you’re trying to chat up a girl!”
He shrugs off his physical difficulties. “It can get frustrating when I try to do something and my body doesn’t let me. Stuff like not being able to open a bottle. But I get over it and get on with my life.” He grew up watching comics like Jack Dee and Lee Evans on TV. But it was seeing Ross Noble live that led him from jobs in journalism and at Sunderland city council to try comedy professionally.
Ross, who’s now a friend, was doing a Stephen Hawking impression and afterwards Lee challenged him to a “Hawkingoff ”. Ross, 41, was in stitches and later invited him to warm up his audience.
“Sometimes you can hear the gasp from the audience when I walk on to the stage,” Lee admits. “That helps because they don’t know what to expect.”
Tonight he is up against tough competition from vintage singers The D-Day Darlings, former Artful Dodger singer Lifford Shillingford, salsa dance group Cali Swing, escapologist Matt Johnson and dancer Shameer Rayes. They will also compete against two magic acts, Maddox Dixon, and Ellie and Jeki.
The show also marks the first time Declan Donnelly will be presenting BGT without partner Ant McPartlin, as Ant continues to recover following his drinkdriving conviction and stint in rehab.
Two acts will go through to the weekend’s final to be in with a hope of winning £250,000 and a Royal Variety Performance slot. Lee would love the BGT crown but he’s also pleased to be sending a message to viewers.
“By getting up on stage, I’d like to think that I’m educating people that disabled people are just the same as everyone else,” he says. “I honestly believe some people think disabled people aren’t allowed a sense of humour. If it helps change someone’s view, then it must be a good thing.”
What would he do with the money if he did win? “I’d definitely not need to get the Megabus to gigs any more,” he quips.
Regardless of whether he goes through to the final, Lee will be succeeding in changing views. Not just one – millions of them.
Britain’s Got Talent live semi-finals start tonight at 7.30pm on ITV.
When Lee Ridley says he has had to learn to see the funny side of life, for once he’s not kidding. Aged just six months old, he developed cerebral palsy, which robbed him of his voice.
Now 37, Lee has spent his life communicating via sign language until seven years ago, when he got an iPad with a text-tospeech app.
By his own admission he now sounds like “the guy who says, ‘The next train to arrive on platform four is the 12.52 service to London Kings Cross’”.
But, all jokes aside, the whoosh of liberation he must have felt is difficult to imagine. The app allowed him to speak to the world – and achieve his dream of becoming a comedian.
He’s the self-deprecatingly named Lost Voice Guy and after getting a “yes” from all four judges in the first round of Britain’s Got Talent, he is set to blow them away again tonight in the first of a week of live semi-finals.
Lee has already won our hearts with his deadpan humour, saying in the first audition: “I’m a struggling stand-up comedian who also struggles to stand up.”
Followed by: “If you don’t laugh at the disabled guy you are going to hell.”
Now he’ll be hoping to win our votes so he can make a career of the hobby that has changed his life.
“Comedy has helped me cope with all the rubbish life throws at me,” he writes, via email. Lee can type quick responses on his iPad but a long conversation is easier this way. It quickly becomes clear self-mockery is key to coping with his disability day to day.
“Yes, I’m getting recognised quite a lot,” he writes. “It’s pretty hard to hide when you walk like one of the zombies out of the Walking Dead!”
But he’s honest about his struggles too – the frustration is there behind the jokes. One of his biggest is dating. “It’s quite hard to chat people up when you can’t speak,” he says. “I don’t have the ability to ‘chat up’ a woman.
“The best I could do is ‘type up’ a woman but that just sounds wrong. You type up your dissertation, you type up the list of the jobs you have to do around the house... There’s nothing sexy about being typed up.
“And even if there was, most people tend to judge on looks alone; they’ve already made their minds up about this disabled guy in front of them before I’ve managed to say a word.” So no typed-up “I love yous”, then? “Only once... when I met Alan Shearer!” jokes the football fan from Consett, County Durham.
It’s particularly poignant to see a wit as quick as Lee’s slowed.
“It gets very frustrating when you have something to say but you have to type it out,” he admits. “If I think of something funny to say, by the time I’ve typed it out the moment has gone.
“It also gets frustrating when people don’t understand my disability and assume I’m deaf and write everything down or shout at me for no reason!” Nothing escapes Lee’s comedy, not even his lack of a voice. “I’d like to think I’d have a Geordie accent… maybe a bit like Ant and Dec,” he says. “I really want a Geordie accent for my iPad. I’m sick of sounding like a posh version of Robocop!”
The one-liners come thick and fast. Which is why he has a Radio 4 sitcom, Ability, has performed at the Edinburgh Festival and won the BBC New Comedy Award in 2014.
Now, with his hit BGT performance, Lee is on the cusp of a career he could barely have dared dream of as a child. He reveals his confidence was shaky back then. “Obviously not having the ability to communicate properly affected me quite a lot. I was definitely a shy child. I was
By getting on stage, I think I’m educating people LEE RIDLEY ON HOW HE RELATES TO AUDIENCES